Skirting boards, oak flooring and Fein Multimaster

[RogerS]

The skirting boards in the flat are 2cm thick and fixed to the walls extremely well. I tried removing one and gave up..I'd wreck the skirting board before the fixtures gave way.

So reading some other threads here (and much appreciated too as I'd not thought of cutting off the bottom of the skirting in situ).

Three main problems that I see are :

1) skirting board is 2cm thick and so just within the range of my Bosch biscuit cutter but is it within the range of the Fein? Which Fein blade would be best?

2) there are two curved walls into the bay window and so the radius of the curve may be too great for the Bosch as the flat front of the cutter will form a chord to the skirting board..which leans me towards using a Fein.

3) if I hit a nail then I reckon that replacing the blade on the Fein will be easier than on the Bosch...and cheaper?

Also I'd rather keep the Bosch 'pristine' and dedicated to woodwork...as it were...as well.

Any thoughts?

 

[Newbie_Neil]

Hi Roger

if I hit a nail then I reckon that replacing the blade on the Fein will be easier than on the Bosch...and cheaper?

You haven't seen the price of the Fein blades have you?

Seriously though, if it an older property I wouldn't recommend trying to get the skirting off. Spend thirty pounds on a Ferm biscuit jointer and take your time.

Cheers
Neil

 

[Jake]

The Fein will take a long long time to do a whole room of that, and I doubt you would succeed in getting a very straight looking cut overall.

HSS (expensive for a hire shop) do a door trimming saw, probably the virutex, for £32.50 for the weekend. Code 03141, their website doesn't allow direct links to products.

Normally, any excuse to buy a tool, but in this case I would hire unless you are going to be doing it often. For the sake of 30/40 quid I'd save my biscuit jointer from harm and no doubt do the job more safely with a tool being used for its intended purpose.

If the curve does stop you cutting all the way along then the fein with the widest e-cut high profile blade can finish off those spots.

 

[RogerS]

Some very helpful suggestions, thanks.

My local Travis has this door trimmer http://www.tool-up.co.uk/shop/diy/MISKDT184.html?id=6kchmIMB and so I reckon that that will do the trick. I think I'll set it to not quite thick enough and then make a final pass. That way I shouldn't blunt the blade too quickly on the wall behind :wink:

And I was so looking forward to an excuse to purchase a Fein

 

[Jake]

Buy one as a reward for saving money on this task by hiring and not buying this tool!

They're great for a lot of odd jobs, but not really this task.

 

[andrewm]

As the others have said, the Fein blades are NOT cheap. It's one of the disadvantages of the Multimaster and I have already blunted one wood blade cutting vertically through skirting and hitting the wall behind. Certainly wouldn't like to try a run with it.

One point on curved skirting. When I came to remove the curved skirting in my bay I discovered it was plaster. Very well done, with several years of accumulated paint it was indistinguishable from wooden skirting next to it. It had never even occured to me to expect that it was until I put a chisel behind it to lever it off

Andrew

 

[Scrit]

As the others have said, the Fein blades are NOT cheap.

Which is one of the reasons I only use my E-Blades to cut out joints, etc. where I can see what is going on and I'm unlikely to hit a nail or panel pin (or whatever else the builder found to use that day!)

One point on curved skirting. When I came to remove the curved skirting in my bay I discovered it was plaster.

I've seen that, too, mainly in bay windows in Victorian houses. But did see it in a full front room in one house about 3 years back. The builder really had some problems explaining to the customer why she was being billed for "repairing and replastering skirting boards"...... (grade listed building) :lol:

Scrit

 

[andrewm]

Has anyone tried sharpening Fein blades?

 

[Scrit]

Has anyone tried sharpening Fein blades?

The disc blades are very fine, so I presume you might be able to sharpen them if you could find a fine enough file, but the E-Cut blades have Japanese-style teeth and I wouldn't know where to go with them

 

[frank]

oh the joys of making the former and cutting and shaping a bit of zinc plate to match the skirting in the room ,then running the plaster in the curved bay window sorry got carried away then .

frank